Lucy Powell is taking a wrecking ball to England’s schools. Writing in The Times on Monday, Powell takes aim at one of her Conservative predecessors, Michael Gove. But Burnham seems unable to conceive of education as being about anything other than preparation for the world of work. Lucy Powell shares the same conviction that the shamefully high proportion of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) is all down to failings in our education system. Rather than introducing children to the best that has been thought and said, Powell wants schools to prepare children for ‘the modern economy, or societal demands’.